The Challenge
Equifax, a leader in the financial services industry, needed to build a competency-based performance-driven sales culture. The benefit of such a culture is that it provides an objective, measurable, electronic database of the characteristics of the ideal Equifax rep and a pool of high potential reps (HIPOS) with documented competencies. The intention of the program was to insure that the company attract and retain the best sales reps. The database would provide objective, measurable, behavioral standards against which managers could be trained to recruit, select, hire and coach reps. The result should be improved retention of reps, especially of the HIPOS.
The Solution
In phase one, we met with senior sales team to:
- Brief them on the project´s goals, scope, activities and benefits.
- Get their input on competencies they believe are critical for overall sales success.
- Align competencies with sales strategy.
- Identify measures of the project´s success.
We then met with sales managers to:
- Identify the current top 50 producers.
- Collect critical incident data on top producers.
A project steering committee assisted and guided us as we conducted these activities:
- Observed top sales performers in the field and recorded observations
- Consolidated this data in the form of competencies for sales reps
- Benchmarked competencies against "best in class" sales organizations.
- Rated competencies in importance to the company´s strategy.
In phase two, we loaded the competencies into our 20/20 Insight™ software. We next validated the assessment instrument results against the top 50 producers and made adjustments to the instrument. We then trained the managers to rate behaviors in simulated sales calls, using the assessment instrument.
Managers did assessment-briefing meetings in their own territories at their sales meetings. They then rated their reps on actual sales calls and returned ratings to us. The reps rated themselves also and returned ratings to us.
We reported individual results to the rep and his/her manager, team results to the managers, and organization results to senior management.